Barely human
by Maiskorn
Summary: The story describes the moment Viktor discovered Lucian is more than just another werewolf with less hair. Slight spoilers for Rise of the Lycans.


**Title**: Barely human  
**Author**: maiskorn  
**Fandom**: Underworld  
**Play/Lines**: _"When he is best he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast." _[The Merchant of Venice]  
**Rating & Warnings**: G  
**Genre**: General  
**Summary**: Set the night Viktor discovered Lucian is more than just another werewolf with less hair. Written for the challenge at the LJ community 10_shakespeare. Slight spoilers for Rise of the Lycans. Prompt line is dual purpose.

*

"These are the commands for the farmers, then. Anything else, Sir?"

"No. You may leave."  
Viktor dismissed the servant with a small movement of his hand. The noise of the man's steps died away as he hurried down the hallway. Viktor didn't waste a second glance, he had other things in mind than the day-to-day tasks that, as a leader he knew, had to be done, but were still tedious to say the least.

There was one left, though, one thing he had to check up on from time to time. His little experiment - which he was, to be true, slowly growing tired of as well. Not necessarily because he didn't believe in it, quite to the contrary: he wanted to give it more time than the rest of the council did. But that fact, that he had to defend the lack of progress every time, it was wearisome.

Viktor opened the door. It was made solely of steel bars so the watchmen passing by could easily oversee the child they kept in the room. The chamber, or rather prison cell, was illuminated by the light which came through this very door and the grid in the ceiling, enough for a vampire or werewolf to see well, if only there had been something interesting to look at; Viktor war sure that as always, the kid would only lie on his bed pace around like an animal in a cage .

But Viktor was wrong this time. The child sat in front of his bed - a heap of hay and a cloth -, as usual wearing nothing but dirty trousers of brown linen just like the poorest farmer boy. His shoulder-length hair fell into his face and he didn't seem to notice Viktor at all; there was a mess of pebbles and sticks all around him that he stared at as if they were a puzzle he needed to solve.

"Lucian."

The boy twitched, looked up and, as he recognized Viktor, scrambled to his feet just to bow his head again.

"Good night, master," he mumbled.

"Good night." Viktor looked him up and down. True, you could have mistaken him for a normal boy. When the moon wasn't full, the beast was sealed inside a completely human body.

Lucian broke the silence, looking at his toes. "Master? Is Olga coming back soon?" He blurted out.

Viktor rose a brow. "No. You've been told, Lucian, you don't need her anymore."

Although Lucian shuffled his feet and opened his mouth, he did the smart thing and refrained from arguing. As he sat down again his face was strangely unreadable for such a young kid, but since he then made an effort of turning his back to the vampire demonstratively, Viktor was knew he was sulking.

The slave Olga had been Lucian's nanny who had breastfed the boy and looked after him a little, duties Viktor could, thanks to the child's nature, not possibly have burdened a vampire woman with. She hadn't been around more often than she absolutely needed to; she knew the monsters in the forest and that Lucian was descended from them and of course that had frightened her. Now that Lucian was well past the age where he needed his diapers changed, Viktor had finally released her, but Lucian had gotten attached.

"What are you doing?" Viktor asked.

"Nothing," Lucian claimed and slowly moved a few of the pebbles towards the hay.

Viktor didn't question that. Puppies also occupied themselves with inanimate objects, so the thought Lucian was mindlessly playing did not seem strange. But as he stepped over to have a look at Lucian's plate - he had not yet been fed -, he suddenly noticed from the changed perspective that the pebbles and the sticks formed abstract patterns.

"Nothing?"

"A game," Lucian answered. "I can play," he added carefully, as if to remind Viktor he had not stepped over one of the many lines the vampires had drawn for him.

"What are you playing?"

A child was no match for Viktor's inquiring gaze. "Just something I heard the guards talk about yesterday..."

Viktor nodded his head, urging the child to go on.

"These are soldiers," Lucian finally admitted. He pointed at the pebbles. "They live in the fort... the bed. The others are trying to take it."

"Why would that be?"

"The grey ones captured some brown soldiers. It's not easy to get them back, though, because they're a lot more grey ones. And they can hide and attack the brown ones." He lifted a handful of hay and revealed a little nest of pebbles.

Viktor felt himself getting more restless with excitement with every word the kid said.

Lucian watched him nervously. "Is that all right?"

"Indeed." If it had been Sonja, this had not been special at all. But that Lucian could assimilate information and flesh it out with his, obviously, considerable imagination - it suddenly set him so far apart from the inhuman monsters that were his next of kin. "Is it the first time you let them fight? Do they have names?" His voice was quiet.

"The first time I made them soldiers?" Lucian reluctantly nodded his head. It was clear that he was very confused someone - and the high and mighty Master Viktor of all people - paid that close attention to him. "I call them grey and brown because they are. But I don't know how to let the brown ones take the fort," he explained. "I want them to win. But I don't want to take pebbles away either, that's against the rules."

"Maybe the brown ones need to step back for a moment and get more soldiers," Viktor suggested, the discovery having lightened his mood.

"But they wanna save their comrades quick, Master."

"It's futile."

The kid gave him a blank look.

"It means they won't get far with that few men no matter what," Viktor explained.

Fiddling with hay, Lucian seemed to consider his words. "Well... there'll be more sticks once my bed gets changed. They're always in there."

Viktor gave him a pale smile, reached forward and petted Lucian's matted hair.  
"Sometimes, all it needs to win a battle is patience."  
And his had paid off.

Regardless, there is a lot of beast in him, Viktor thought, as the child, despite his fear of all vampires, leaned into his touch like a puppy desperate for affection. That was acceptable, though - even preferable. Viktor had no interest in creating a race to match his own or even the humans. He stepped towards the door.

"I will see you later, Lucian."

"Why?"

"To find out if you can combine what you did here," he looked at the imaginary battleground, "with the reflexes and strength of yours which I've seen previously."

Lucian watched him leaving. At this point, he was neither old nor experienced enough to actually tell why he was disappointed. Later on, when situations like that had become standard, he would realize that here for the first time he had, for a moment, thought Viktor was actually interested in what he did. But he never was, none of them were, no one but that woman who was the ray of hope Lucian could, at that age, not even dare to hope for yet.

They wanted to know what he could do for them and that was all that was important about little Lucian with his sticks and stones in his cage.

*

Comments and criticism are appreciated.


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